Facebook to officially launch mid-roll video advertising across app and online social network

Apparently Facebook has plans to boost video across the social network, following the success of the format, and to help content creators generate some income through advertising.

Sound familiar? However, the largest social media network is attempting to do things differently.

Industry sources said that the social network was already testing mid-roll advertising formats. These allow publishers to insert adverts 20 seconds into a video clip. Why mid-roll? It seems that CEO Mark Zuckerberg isn’t a fan of pre-roll ads and perhaps he wants to differentiate the offering from video advertising competitor YouTube.

When it comes to revenue sharing, Facebook is offering up the same percentages as YouTube: 55-45 for the publisher.

This could potentially present a first chance for publishers to monetise from their content. Indeed, many have built a presence across the social network without seeing any ad revenue return from their content. Last year, the company said daily views of its videos amounted to 100 million hours a day.

Only in 2016, the company began to enable publishers to create videos that were advertising-sponsored, following a complaint by BuzzFeed over the lack of monetisation options.

Mid-roll is not a brand new format. It has already been in testing since last year, but it seems that only in 2017 the company is getting serious about its potential.

There’s one advantage (or disadvantage depending on your point of view) to mid-roll video adverts: time. Ad clips will only play 20 seconds into a video. That means some publishers could be missing out on ad views. However, it also suggests that only interested users will view the ad and because they are keen on seeing the rest of the content, they are more likely to view the entire advert. This could boost ad completion rates.

Mid-roll ads can also be inserted at the 90-second mark. Publishers are encouraged to create content that is both engaging and creative.